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.Instead, he stood and led the way towards the bridge.“Captain on the bridge,” Cooke said, as he stepped through the hatch.“Captain, we will be back in the system in five minutes.”Glen nodded as he sat down in the command chair.The attackers had timed their attack badly.or had they? What did they really have in mind? It couldn't be a coincidence that their attack had come just after Dauntless and her convoy had left, having unloaded hundreds of tons of supplies for the aliens.Glen knew better than to believe in coincidences, particularly unlikely ones.They just didn't happen.“Red alert,” he ordered.He could worry about what was actually going on after the battle was done.“All hands to battle stations.”“All stations report ready,” Sandy reported, a minute later.“Weapons online, ready to fire,” Cooke added.He sounded confident, although Dauntless had yet to have her first real combat test.“Defence grid armed, ready to fire.”“Establish a datalink with Independence,” Glen ordered.They’d be fighting side-by-side with a colonial warship.If nothing else, the experience would tell them a great deal about the colonial military machine.“And then take us out of hyperspace.”He braced himself.“And send a signal to Fairfax, copied to Bottleneck,” he added.There would be bare seconds for the attackers to notice the signal, not long enough for them to change their tactics or start running.“Inform them that we are about to engage the enemy.”Chapter Twenty“Captain,” Dana said, sharply, “I’m picking up two portals forming.”“I see them,” Jason said.Two portals were blossoming into life, far too close to the planet for comfort.Moments later, they disgorged a pair of starships and then faded away into nothingness.“Alter course to evade.”“Reading one heavy cruiser, Federation Navy, and one light cruiser, Colonial Militia,” Dana added.“They’re advancing towards us on attack vector.”Jason hesitated, contemplating the tactical situation.They might be able to defeat both starships, but only at a cost.Few people willingly tangled with the Colonial Militia, not when years of fighting had turned them into ruthless opponents; the Federation Navy, too, had a reputation for icy determination that had led them to fight and win the Battle of Sphere-Prime.Their political leaders might be determined to forget that the war had ever taken place, but he dared not assume that the starship commander facing him was that idiotic.“Continue to evade,” he ordered.They’d hit most of their targets on the planet’s surface, including the most important one.“And prepare to engage if they come after us.”***Glen stared down at the live feed from the sensors and knew that they were facing the same people who had attacked Tyson’s Rest.Whoever they were, whatever they had in mind, the attack pattern was distinctive.They’d taken out government buildings, military bases and communications centres on the planet before, but they’d saved the worst for the alien refugee camp.The camp had not only been hit badly, it had been wiped out of existence.They hadn't bothered with sending in the ground troops this time.They’re all dead, he thought, remembering the listless Dragons and the handful of humans trying to supervise them.All gone.He shuddered, inwardly.The whole idea of humanising the Dragons still struck him as absurd, but the people trying it hadn’t deserved to die.They certainly hadn't deserved to be blasted from orbit, wiped out as casually as one might order dinner.But there had been nothing anyone could do to save them.The sensor readings made it clear that the planetary defence network had been smashed.“Nine starships; one light cruiser, two frigates, five destroyers and one armed freighter,” Cooke said.The display updated rapidly as the enemy ships started to move away from the planet.“Captain, I have positively identified three of them as being present during the attack on Tyson’s Rest.”Glen smiled, coldly.It was unlikely that the raiders would stand and fight, no matter their political case.In his experience, terrorists rarely picked fights against people who might be able to stand up for themselves.But they couldn't be allowed to escape, not when they would come back again and again.They had to be pinned down and destroyed now.“Take us towards the light cruiser,” he ordered.It was the most dangerous threat, even though the destroyers were more numerous.“Maximum acceleration.”He studied the sensor readings as they closed in on the light cruiser.It seemed to be fully-functional, something that was unusual for a pirate ship.They were generally slackers when it came to maintaining their vessels.He glared down at the display as he realised that would add extra ammunition to Cynthia’s insistence that they were dealing with rogue colonial ships, rather than pirates or simple raiders.But they would need physical evidence to actually move against the backers, if indeed there were backers.At least one revenge attack on the other side of the Great Wall had been carried out by a man who’d acted alone.“Weapons range in five minutes,” Cooke reported.“Enemy ship is accelerating.”Glen nodded, trying to put himself in his enemy’s shoes.What was he thinking? What would he do? In his place, Glen would have ordered his ships to scatter, knowing that the two hostile ships couldn't chase them all down.But if they stuck together, they’d have their best chance of winning if it came down to a fight.We’d take a bite out of them even if we lost, Glen thought, slowly.They shouldn't stand and fight.So.why aren't they running?They’d been lucky, he realised, as the enemy ship fought to pick up speed.Dauntless had come out of hyperspace at a respectable speed, while the enemy ship had been dawdling as it carried out its mission.Unless they opened a portal and vanished into hyperspace, they were going to be caught.They had to know it.So what sort of game were they playing?***Jason looked over at Dana.“General orders,” he said.“All ships are to scatter; I say again, all ships are to scatter.They are to meet us at the RV point.”“Understood,” Dana said.She showed no sign of caring, but he heard several other crewmen exhale in relief
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